Trump Charged With 37 counts of Espionage, Obstruction and related crimes

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Unfortunately, journalists are not generally very good at reporting on legal issues (other than a few very good ones).

[River]

Unfortunately, journalists are not generally very good at reporting on legal issues (other than a few very good ones).

I've seen this problem in my own line of work too. It's frustrating at best and terrifying at worst.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's probably more frustrating in my line of work, and more terrifying in yours!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Despite V's earlier caution on this point, I have struggled to understand how Dept. of Justice officials didn't feel (at least by late 2022) that they had probable cause to search Bedminster.

One legal twitter account that I follow who says that they are an "Attorney w/40 Years Criminal Law & Procedure Experience in Federal & State Court Trials, Appeals & Habeas" (and so more experienced in this area than I am by far) thinks that they should have.



I'm still not convinced that they had the necessary information to establish that their evidence of criminal activity currently at Bedminster (currently, at that time), as opposed to evidence that at some point there was evidence of criminal activity there, sufficient to justify getting a search warrant for that property. But I'm not convinced that there wasn't, either. We know there was a lot of push back from parts of the FBI about "raiding" (:roll:) Trump's property's, and perhaps that is the real reason why it never happened at Bedminster. I doubt we will have know.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm with Hugo Lowell

[Voronwë the Faithful]

From the FOIA king.

[N.E. Brigand]

My other question is, since Feinberg appears to have been right on the money on the timing of the indictment, was he also on the money about Meadows?

Earlier today, Marcy Wheeler noted that Andrew Feinberg was probably going to be wrong about the venue: he wrote in the Independent that it would be D.C., but she thought the Washington Post article about the goings-on in Miami were more reliable. (She hasn't posted or tweeted since about an hour before tonight's big news.)

The not always reliable Andrew Feinberg writes that Jack Smith's team is "now prepared to 'stack' an 'additional 30 to 45 charges' on top of the 37-count indictment brought against Mr Trump on 8 June" and that their "decision on whether to seek additional charges from a grand jury — and where to seek them — will depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference to the twice-impeached, now twice-indicted former president." Supposedly prosecutors have "evidence against the ex-president that has not yet been publicly acknowledged by the department, including other recordings prosecutors have obtained which reveal Mr Trump making incriminating statements." We'll see. Or maybe we won't.

Edited to add a New York Times report that says the grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and Walt Nauta has issued new subpoenas in this case.

- - - - - - - - - -
In other news, yesterday it was reported that the person described in the known indictment as being the representative of a political action committee who was shown a classified map by ex-president Donald Trump is Susie Wiles, a powerful Florida political operative who headed the Florida election campaign for Trump in 2016 and who also played a part in Ron DeSantis's 2018 campaign for governor.

And as one observer noted by reference to this 2019 report that in 2014, Wiles's then-husband, Lanny, arranged for Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to have a front row seat at a Congressional hearing featuring testimony from Michael McFaul, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. I remember seeing a picture of what looked like Veselnitskaya using her phone to take a picture of McFaul's (presumably unclassified) notes. Veselnitskaya, as you may recall, is the attorney who attended the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Donald Trump, Jr. expected to receive dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign. I don't think there's any connection here (the Wileses divorced in 2017), other than just the usual ones in which money, power, and influence all intersect.

The Wiles's daughter, Caroline, was named to a White House role as Trump's scheduler at the beginning of his administration but left after just a month for failing to pass an FBI background check, possibly as a result of two arrests for driving while intoxicated.

[N.E. Brigand]

Jason Leopold of Bloomberg has learned, thanks to FOIA responses from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice, that there never was a standing declassification order issued by President Trump, despite his post-presidency claims otherwise.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I actually posted a link to the Feinberg article and then deleted it. While Feinberg was partly accurate in his last "scoop" (though wrong on venue as Marcy Wheeler noted), I just found this new article to be too much of a stretch to take much from. It is a weird amalgamation of the two separate investigations, and the whole thing about the decision as to whether to pursue further chargers depending on how Cannon acts strikes as much more speculation than fact. I think there is a reasonably good chance that they will proceed with a superseding indictment and/or additional charges in NJ or DC at some point, but I think that will be much more determined by what the evidence is than how Cannon acts.

I had not heard about Wiles, and I did not know about the connection to Veselniskaya. That is all very interesting!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I actually posted a link to the Feinberg article and then deleted it. While Feinberg was partly accurate in his last "scoop" (though wrong on venue as Marcy Wheeler noted), I just found this new article to be too much of a stretch to take much from. It is a weird amalgamation of the two separate investigations, and the whole thing about the decision as to whether to pursue further chargers depending on how Cannon acts strikes as much more speculation than fact. I think there is a reasonably good chance that they will proceed with a superseding indictment and/or additional charges in NJ or DC at some point, but I think that will be much more determined by what the evidence is than how Cannon acts.

Or, as Marcy Wheeler put it:

I had not heard about Wiles, and I did not know about the connection to Veselniskaya. That is all very interesting!

I also had not realized that Wiles was the de facto campaign manager for Trump's 2024 campaign.

[N.E. Brigand]

I actually posted a link to the Feinberg article and then deleted it. While Feinberg was partly accurate in his last "scoop" (though wrong on venue as Marcy Wheeler noted), I just found this new article to be too much of a stretch to take much from. It is a weird amalgamation of the two separate investigations, and the whole thing about the decision as to whether to pursue further chargers depending on how Cannon acts strikes as much more speculation than fact. I think there is a reasonably good chance that they will proceed with a superseding indictment and/or additional charges in NJ or DC at some point, but I think that will be much more determined by what the evidence is than how Cannon acts.

Or, as Marcy Wheeler put it:

... ["See. This is not how indictments work."] ...

I had not heard about Wiles, and I did not know about the connection to Veselnitskaya. That is all very interesting!

I also had not realized that Wiles was the de facto campaign manager for Trump's 2024 campaign.

I just read Wheeler's write-up about Wiles. Perhaps I was too quick to write off the Russia connection. Also here's the relevant CNN passage:

Wiles, one of Trump’s closest advisers, is effectively running his third bid for the presidency and has taken an active role in Trump’s legal strategy, including helping find lawyers and helping arrange payment to attorneys representing Trump associates being questioned in the multiple federal and state investigations into the former president.

Wiles is also a close associate of Chris Kise, who is on Trump’s legal team and appeared in court earlier this month when Trump was indicted.

Sources in Trump’s inner circle tell CNN they were blindsided by the news.

Edited to add something I just learned: Susie Wiles's father was the late sportscaster Pat Summerall (1930-2013).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As Pat Summerall's late partner, John Madden would have said:

Boom!

[Dave_LF]

Here's an example of how things play out in nations with functioning immune systems:
Brazilian court votes to bar Bolsonaro from political office until 2030

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump today wrote on his social media metwork that Jack Smith "looks like a crackhead".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The DoJ has filed a less-redacted version of the original affidavit that they used to obtain the search warrant.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .156.1.pdf

I haven't looked at it yet to see if there is anything of great interest that has not been previously revealed.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Less than an hour before Nauta's third scheduled arraignment, there still is no counsel listed for him in the docket, but there is a report that he has hired someone.

Just in: Walt Nauta has settled on a local Florida lawyer, Sasha Dadan, per a person familiar
She has limited federal court experience--her name does not appear on PACER at all--but she has lots of experience trying cases in Fort Pierce, Fla. where Judge Aileen Cannon is based.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It was the valet, in the storage closet!

WALT NAUTA AND THE SINGLE BOX

I'm pretty sure we will hearing more about those gaps in the surveillance footage down the line.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've been waiting for this shoe to drop for several days, and it finally has. Back on June 27 when Nauta had his second scheduled arraignment postponed because he still had not hired local counsel, D.C.-based attorney, Stanley Woodward (who of course is being paid by Trump's PAC), stated that he was going to request a continuance of the status conference that Judge Cannon had scheduled on July 14 because he had another trial, but that he could not do so until he was admitted Pro Hac Vice once Nauta hired local counsel. Well, Nauta did hire local counsel and Woodword was granted access on July 6. If it were me, I would have had my motion ready to file and filed it as soon as possible; it is a very simple motion. Well, Woodword finally filed it this morning, and it is full of misstatements and misleading information. Remarkably, Jay Bratt for the DOJ was able to file an opposition within less than an hour, responding to all the misstatements and misleading information and also pointing out that Woodward still had not even submitted his form to start the process of getting a security clearance (and then had the gall to claim that he couldn't "meaningfully" participate in the conference without one, which is not even true). This will be the first real test of how Cannon will act in this case. If she grants this continuance, it is a clear sign that she is going to jump through hoops to protect Trump's interests.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lisa Ruben notes that Woodward seems to be "picking a fight" with Cannon, which is not a smart move.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Chris Kise has filed a response for Trump saying that "All defense counsel are available to attend the subject hearing on Tuesday, July 18, 2023.
The undersigned has also conferred with counsel for the Government and is authorized to represent that if the Court is available, the Government is willing to appear on Tuesday, July 18, 2023." It will be interesting to see if Judge Cannon takes them up on that.

Meanwhile, however, when the DoJ made it's motion to continue the trial date from August to December, Judge Cannon initially orderd the defendants to respond to that motion by July 6. When Nauta's arraignment got pushed back to July 6, she pushed that back to July 10, today. Thus far, however, nothing has been filed. Technically, they have until midnight tonight to file their response, which is about 3 hours from now. I wonder if they will.